HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY HALF-LIFE! We here at Black Mesa have some big news!

The Big News:
Last year, Black Mesa was one of the first Steam games to be Greenlit by you, our amazing fans. We've had quite a year since then, with a lot happening internally that we haven't been able to talk about... until now. Black Mesa has been given the opportunity to be sold as a retail product on Steam! This is an incredible honor - one we never expected - but also one we found hard to accept.

We never developed Black Mesa with money in mind. Our team is made up of average, hardworking people, and no one joined the team to make money. For us, Black Mesa is purely a labor of love. We believe this philosophy has significantly contributed to the overall quality and feel of the game.

Our decision to sell Black Mesa rests on two key points. One is we believe we can make the game even better by having full access to the Source engine. This lets us tackle and fix limitations instead of working around them. The second is because frankly, our team could really use the financial help.

The Plan:
Soon you'll see Black Mesa available on Steam for a relatively low price. But we aren't dropping all support for the free version. In fact shortly after the Steam release there will be a completely new free version of the game. We also plan to open source our maps and some game assets to the modding community!

Purchasing the Steam version of Black Mesa is more about supporting the team and our efforts than anything else. However, the Steam version will include features that the free version simply can not have. We will be paying careful attention to feedback, and you'll have a very real say in how the final game turns out.

Long-Term Plans and Xen:
We've been overwhelmed by fan anticipation for Xen, and we're excited so many people are eager to conclude the game. To be totally honest however, Xen is still a ways off. Over the past year, we have spent a HUGE amount of time porting the game to a new engine and fixing hundreds of bugs. The work to port to the new engine was not because of the decision to go retail, this was work that had to be done to get Black Mesa onto Steam and support our future plans.

So, please be patient with us as we work to make Xen a stunning and worthy conclusion to Black Mesa. Until Xen is completed, we have multiple interesting additions planned for the Steam version of Black Mesa, which we will announce later on down the road.

Are you able to read the Twitter feeds on the right of the page and the News section? (And maybe even the forums). Do you see anywhere the devs saying that it's dead? No. Instead, there's been made even more progress.

No it's not. Everybody though it was, but it was released (well the 1st part was released anyway), in 2012. The devs are working on Xen now, and they themselves said that they won't uncover anything about it until the release of the second part, so it's very obvious that you won't hear much from them until then (or until Nov. 20th).

If you think they are ,,lazy,, , then ok. I'd like to see you start such a project and finish it in 2 years, if remaking a game from 0 is piece of cake and everyone could do it.

Black Mesa developers clearly don't have a clue about Vortigaunt behavior. In Half-Life,Vortigaunts aren't skilled alien warriors,they're alien slaves. They will retreat if their friends are nearby,if they are heavily wounded they will try to flee and hide somewhere. If they are cornered by the player,they will melee him. Though in Black Mesa,they will fearlessly attack the player,and sometimes even attempt to close the distance and melee the player. Their stance is upright like in Half-Life 2,unlike in Half-Life 1 where they are hunched over (which makes sense due to them being alien slaves). Bullsquids have become acid-lions,spitting multiple balls of (now near impossible to dodge) acid in a round pattern unlike their single ball of acid in Half-Life 1. Why was the SPAS-12 in Office Complex switched with a Colt Python? That would be completely unnecessary if the Vortigaunts didn't attack as fast as they did in Half-Life Episode 2,even faster than their attack speed on the Hard difficulty in Half-Life. For USMC Special Forces,HECU sound rather like a bunch of idiots with guns rather than professionals. What happened to the M203PI grenade shooting HECU? It doesn't make sense they wouldn't bring ammo for their MP5 M203PI grenade launchers. And last thing,Ichthyosaur has gone a bit too green lately. Can we expect these things to be changed in the second version?

Bad HECU AI? I personally think it's way better. Half-Life had bad HECU AI in comparison and they were way worse at aiming. It's only realistic that a military unit is able to hit it's targets. Half-Life had scripted HECU AI unlike Black Mesa,which does not.

No, BMS is not complete yet. The current (or better said public and playable) version, released in September 2012, doesn't contain the Xen chapters (Xen, Gonarch's Lair, Interloper, Nihilant), but everything else is there so if you want to give it a try, go ahead. It's worth the time.

At first i made a really nice review to this game mod. But then i advanced further in the game and i got really pissed off... Yeah its pretty and scenic , yeah most of the voice acting is great and the music is fantastic but there is a huge annoying gash that just makes the game shit! AI: WHAT BASICALLY MAKES THE GAME SHIT AI: SHIIIT Soldiers...Im fine with other critters plaing running to eat you but soldiers(well the alien soldiers suck in this department as well). Anyway so where were we? oh…

Sep 17 2012, 8:40pm by Aleksei_Lenin

Style

Genre

First Person Shooter

Theme

Sci-Fi

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Single & Multiplayer

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